


The Golden Fish

by shamefulshameless



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Other, Pre-Canon, baby wolfie!, by that i mean like.....13 year old wolfie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-11-19 03:04:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11304402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamefulshameless/pseuds/shamefulshameless
Summary: The immediate aftermath of that car burning, and the loss of innocence in the boy who lit it ablaze.





	The Golden Fish

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be a multi-chap but it didn't get quite the momentum it needed to maintain itself ya know?? Ah well, it works as a oneshot!

The night was an unusually still one. On his walk home, Wolfgang noted the lack of drunk partiers and clueless beggars crawling the streets. Appropriate, he thought. They were hiding from him.

He felt his shoes pound the pavement rhythmically as he walked. The steady thrum could be the only thing keeping him from losing his mind after what had just happened. If he didn't have something to focus on, he would be losing his mind, right? He should be losing his mind. Any sane person would be falling to their knees, running back, screaming, vomiting. He should be vomiting. He should be vomiting and he isn't. Up to now he'd been breathing through his mouth out of fear that he'd smell himself and do just that. He chanced a inhale through his nose.

He reeked of smoke, just as he knew he would. But instead of making the weight of his actions collapse onto his shoulders, it hung in the air, dull. He smelled like smoke. Of course he did. There had been a fire. That was all; it had no meaning. He just smelled like smoke and that was that. He felt nothing.

Wolfgang knew how people were meant to behave, or he thought he did from movies. There was a protocol after a person does something they regret. There are stages of grief, he knew that from Felix's mother, who had sat Wolfgang down not long ago to tell him about them. In this moment, though, he still felt nothing at all. People are supposed to feel guilty.

It came to him as he turned the last corner before his shitty apartment building. People are supposed to feel guilty, yes. So that meant he wasn't a person. How could any person do this? If there was a word for what he was, it would come to him much later.

Wolfgang didn't realize he had reached his house until he was face to face with his bedroom door. Or, at least, the frame. His father had removed the door ages ago, around the time Wolfgang had started barricading it closed to keep him out. Wolfgang contemplated going to sleep for a while, or finding Felix and watching a film. He really should have had a plan for this. He decided to take care of the smell first. He took a bath in the dirty tub his family shared, scrubbed his clothes in it when he was done. He was careful with his leather jacket since his mother had bought it for him, and it remained the only expensive thing he owned. He carefully wiped every inch with a damp cloth, and took some solace in the repetition of it. Only when he was finished and had hung up his clothes to dry did it hit him, all at once.

He was an orphan now.

He brushed his fingers against the jacket hanging from the clothesline his mother had strung up in the hall. A week ago she had been here. He looked to the kitchen, not five feet away, to the spot where he'd last seen her.

 

* * *

 

 

He had come home late, but he didn't realize how late until he heard his father's heavy footsteps from the bedroom. Coming home later than him always ended poorly for Wolfgang. He hurried into the kitchen, hoping against hope that his mother would be in there. She was, hunched over a pot of something that smelled bland. As she turned when he burst through the door, he recognized the look in her eyes before she realized who it was. She had thought her husband had entered. Wolfgang was sure his eyes shared the same scared glint, even after his many efforts to extinguish it. He hated showing fear, especially to his father.

"Sorry I'm late, Mama," he'd said softly. She put her wooden spoon down and came to stand in front of him. She raised an eyebrow. "You've been smoking," she stated. Wolfgang looked to the floor. "I hate when you smoke, _rybka_. You are a child, smoking is for not for children." He looked up at her. She wasn't angry, she was never angry at him. They rarely fought- they both had enough hostility to deal with from the man in the other room.

Wolfgang smirked and whispered as quietly as he could. "How is the secret?" he asked. It had been three days since she had told him about the secret inside of her. She had seemed nervous about it, but there was a part of Wolfgang excited to have someone else in the house with him. He looked to see if she brightened at the mention of their new family member.

But her eyes held only sadness. Like always. Wolfgang always knew when they'd just had a particularly bad fight. Not only from new marks on her skin, but also from the terseness of her words, or if she fussed over him more than usual. This must have been a horrible one. She usually didn't have time to care if he smoked, and her shoulder was sporting a brilliantly purple splotch that wasn't there this morning. He needed to be careful tonight.

Her eyes flickered past him, and sadness was replaced again by fear. "Look who decided to show up," slurred a voice behind him. Wolfgang's shoulders tensed. It was going to be an especially bad night, no matter what happened. Hopefully they could get this over with quickly and he could go to bed. He didn't like staying up late with fresh bruises.

"So. You think you can come and go as you please, is that it?" Anton came into Wolfgang' line of vision, dressed in his best scotch stained undershirt. "This is your house, after all. Right?" He grabbed Wolfgang by the wrist when he realized he wasn't meeting his eyes. He pulled him so close that Wolfgang could almost smell the rot on his teeth. "This is my fucking house, boy." he growled. He threw Wolfgang to the ground, which he'd been expecting. What he wasn't expecting was a blow to his chin that sent the back of his head crashing into the cement floor. His vision went white, then black.

He must not have been out very long, because when Wolfgang came to he was greeted with the rare but not-unfamiliar sight of his mother, kneeled in front of him with her arms thrown back, screaming in Russian at his father, still standing and looking absolutely murderous. She had thrown herself in between them as soon as he'd passed out, he guessed. To protect him.

Wolfgang's Russian wasn't very good, despite her efforts to teach him, but he understood enough of what she said now. "Stay away from my son!" she repeated over and over between expletives. He didn't like it when she was brave- it never ended well. Wolfgang touched the inside of her arm to try to calm her down. He could take the brunt of it tonight, he tried to tell her without words. Get out.

She whirled around at his touch. " _Rybka_ ," she used her pet name for him, the same her mother used to call her. She touched his face, ran her fingers through his hair to check for blood. He wasn't bleeding, but he was sure that a massive bump was on its way where he'd hit his head.

Suddenly, she was being pulled from his line of vision with a yelp. Wolfgang spun his head left to see her being dragged from the kitchen by her hair. Wolfgang moved to stand, but his knees buckled and his vision clouded again. He'd be forced to stay there until they came back.

Wolfgang was dozing off despite himself- a consequence of what was likely a concussion. Sitting with his back against the wall, he drifted off sick with worry until the door banged open. Anton, alone. He looked at Wolfgang coldly, then turned and left the room.

The next morning police had shown up at the door. Her body had been found floating in the Spree. Clearly, they told him, she had killed herself. Wolfgang knew better. He also knew better than to indicate that he knew better.

He didn't know how he'd done it; if he'd thrown her off a bridge or held her under the water or hit her with a car... his mind swirled with images of her death, each worse than the last. Not that it mattered. All that mattered now was what he was going to do about it.

And a week later his father was dead.

 

* * *

  
Wolfgang stood where his head had smacked the floor. If he'd been better prepared, he would've been able to follow them out. He wouldn't have fallen, and he would've stopped it. Because of his own weakness he was without a mother and a sibling.

But he didn't regret what he'd done tonight. Patricide, as it turns out, is easy enough with a motive.

Not to mention how good it had felt to watch the bastard burn like that. It had felt like his whole life led up to that car.

But now, half an hour later, he wasn't so sure. What if the cops actually decided to care about a gangster being murdered, and he was caught? What if someone in the organization started asking questions? He'd always been a shit liar. But the biggest question of all... what was going to happen to him now? Where was he going to go? He'd been so caught up in anger and grief that he hadn't considered what his new life as an orphan would consist of.

Of course, he'd want to move in with Felix. But at 13, he doubted he'd be given the choice. Plus Felix would no doubt want to know what happened, and he wasn't ready to tell him. Not yet.

A horrible thought came to him. His closest surviving adult relative was his uncle. There was every chance he'd be forced to move into that stuffy manor with the yapping dogs and the gun wielding men standing guard at every door. He would have to become Steiner's brother. Steiner, at 15, was an insufferable, dangerous brat who Wolfgang wanted less than nothing to do with. Sergei and his Aunt Elke were worse, if possible. Sergei was just a smarter Anton, because he hadn't gotten caught and lost all his money. They were, at their core, the same.

Wolfgang would not let that be his fate. He would flee Berlin if he had to. Anything to avoid that becoming his new home.

Five days later he stood with Sergei at the gates to the manor. Sergei slapped a meaty hand on his shoulder. 

"Welcome to your new home."

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from an old Russian folktale, which the nickname rybka stems from. Of course, I don't speak Russian so let me know if I got anything wrong!


End file.
